


tell me what you want (what you really, really want)

by lugubrious



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lugubrious/pseuds/lugubrious
Summary: ‘What’s Thomas running from?’Chuck takes a deep breath. He looks equal parts determined and hesitant when he says, 'You.’-They made it to the safe haven. This is what comes after.





	tell me what you want (what you really, really want)

**Author's Note:**

> ZIGAZIG-AH
> 
> warning: mentions of PTSD, eating disorders, and suicide
> 
> whoever can guess what song the title is from gets $5

They put names into a hat. It’s a lot of names, but they’re divided into subsections - like age - so when Newt picks his options are mostly ex-gladers or the girls from group B. The rules are easy - you pull a name out, you get that person a present.

No one knows what days are which anymore, calendars pretty much went out the window when the ground started melting like butter and a thousand billion people died. Or so the adults told him. So things like holidays had been obsolete for about a decade until someone suggested the gift giving.

The first year, Newt got Brenda. He ended up giving her a little wooden carving of her name that she hammered to her door. It wasn’t much - he didn’t know exactly what to get her - but Lizzy reminded him of a sign she used to have hanging on her doorknob that said ‘Liz’s room’ when she was a kid. It seemed as good as anything.

And Brenda had hugged him when he gave it to her, and her eyes were very bright so maybe it was alright.

Minho gave him a flask of something he had clearly concocted himself.

it almost made all of them blind, but they had a good night.

He pulls a name out this year and it’s ‘Thomas.’

+

They share a room. They needed to share a room, because Thomas kept waking up yelling for Newt and Newt would wake up yelling for Thomas and Minho suggested that it might be better if the yelling was confined to one room. Like he’s never woken everyone up because he was counting them, ticking names off a checklist to make sure the people he loved were still alive and present. But they don’t bring that up, and Newt and Thomas move their bedrolls into the same room. 

Chuck says it’s a good thing because, ‘even when Thomas isn’t screaming shuck murder I can’t sleep ‘cause of his snoring.’

For Newt, that doesn’t prove to be much of an issue. He sleeps fine, better with Thomas there.

The issues, apart from their intermittent nighttime screaming matches, arise during the day. Because in the day they don’t talk. They used to, of course. But then, a year ago, they stopped, and they haven’t started up again since. 

+

‘Who’d you get?’

‘Gally.’ Minho flicks an eyebrow up at Newt. ‘You?’

‘Thomas. Stop bloody smirking.’

‘This is just my face. What’re you gonna get him?’

‘No buggin’ clue. What about Gally?’

‘No _buggin’_ clue. Seriously though. I have no idea what that shank wants. A normal nose?’

‘What happened to your ‘stash’?’

‘Gally and I drank it all.’

‘In one go?’

‘Maybe.’ Minho looks slightly sheepish. ‘Don’t really remember.’

‘Right.’

‘Y’know, you could always try _talking_ to Thomas.’

Newt ignores that, just like he ignored it when Liz said it. And Brenda. Dr. Bernadette. Teresa. And when he thinks it, sometimes, lying awake and watching the sky go from deep blue to bruise grey. It’s not like they haven’t spoken at all. It’s been a year; they say hi to each other sometimes.

They get near black-out drunk on Minho’s homemade liqueur sometimes.

‘You could ask Teresa what Gally might want. She got him last year.’

‘As long as I don’t have to wrap anything.’

Liz walks over then. ‘Who’d you get?’ she says. She has a scar on her cheek. Every time Newt sees it his stomach contracts so he tries to avoid looking at the left side of her face.

‘Thomas. And don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ she smirks at Minho, he smirks back.

‘What d’you think I should get Gally?’

‘Don’t say a normal nose, we already thought of that.’

‘Nevermind Gally. What am I gonna get Aris?’

‘You got Aris?’ Minho whistles. ‘Tough crowd.’

Newt gets to his feet.

‘Bernie?’ Liz asks. He nods.

‘See you in a bit, yeah?’

‘Ask her what I should get Gally,’ Minho yells as he leaves.

+

Dr. Bernadette isn’t a real doctor. She’s not even a real adult, in Newt’s book, which basically means she’s much younger than anyone he ever saw at WICKED and therefore not warranting of automatic distrust. Only a few years older than him, closer to Jorge in age. Although, given the passage of time Newt is now, technically, an adult. That doesn’t change much; he’s never trusted himself.

Dr. Bernadette goes by ‘Bernie’ most of the time. She’s 26 years old and lived in one of the countries that didn’t get hit by the solar flares, so while the rest of the world was collapsing into chaos she was finalising a masters in psychology and human development.

Liz and Alby had to almost carry him into the first ‘session,’ but he’s been seeing her for about a year now.

She’s nice.

She says,

‘Who did you pick?’

‘Isn’t that supposed to be a secret?’

‘All our talks are confidential, Newton.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Who did _you_ get?’

‘Trevor. I’m gonna make him a hat so he can stop getting sunburnt. Now you.’

Newt hesitates for a moment. As far as admissions go this one is pretty tame, but he knows exactly how she’s going to react when he finally says -

‘Thomas.’ Then, wearily, ‘don’t.’

Bernie raises her hands in the air. ‘I’m not going to. I’m only going to say one thing, ok? One thing.’

‘What?’

She shrugs. ‘What do you _want_, Newt?’

At the moment the answer is pretty simple: he wants to figure out what gift to give Thomas. But he doesn’t say that, because before he can Bernie has moved onto other topics and Newt lets it happen. In the back of his mind he is wondering, though. What he wants is easy. But what does _Thomas_ want?

+

Thomas isn’t known for wanting things. Needing things - needing food, water, shelter, to get out of the maze, through the scorch - needing to sacrifice anything and everything in order to keep the people around him alive. But as far as Newt knows he’s never _wanted_ anything.

Which is fine when they’re running for their lives through various hellish situations, but now they’re not running anymore. 

They have, as Bernie likes to remind him, _stopped_ running. From WICKED, from the flare. It’s no longer about surviving, she tells him, it’s about living. Which is funny because Newt was never that insistent on surviving in the first place, but his friends were. And now they have. So the surviving, the needing is done. What does Thomas want?

The real trick is going to be figuring it out without having to talk to the guy.

+

‘Hey Chuck?’

The kid looks up. Not so much a kid anymore. ‘What’s up?’ Then he squints. ‘Is this about you drawing Thomas’ name for gift giving? ‘Cause Minho said I wasn’t allowed to help you out.’

‘Minho’s a bloody-‘

‘I’m gonna help you out.’

‘Sh-oh.’ Newt grins before he can stop himself. ‘You are?’

‘Yeah. I agree with Minho that you two not speaking is a load of klunk but there are better ways to help you work it out. Like helping you get Thomas something freaking awesome to kickstart a conversation.’

Newt opens his mouth to say ‘_that’s not why I’m doing this_.’ He closes his mouth.

‘That’s not why I’m doing this.’

‘I know.’ Chuck smirks, and Newt remembers the first time he smiled after they pulled him out of the box. It’s the same smile, but older and a little more evil. Probably Minho’s influence.

‘What’s your idea then?’

‘You remember Liz’s birthday this year?’

‘Yeah?’

‘That oughta give you something to think about.’

+

On Elizabeth’s 17th birthday, Thomas had baked a cake. He didn’t have to, he and Newt hadn’t spoken in half a year, but he did anyway. He approached Liz where she was sitting with Newt and Alby and Harriet and Miyuki and presented it to her on a wooden slab.

‘Happy birthday, Liz,’ he’d said. She’d smiled, got to her feet and hugged him.

‘You didn’t have to.’

Thomas had smiled back, for a moment, filling the gaunt edge to his face with happiness. ‘Sure I did.’ His gaze flickered towards Newt then away again. It was the first time Newt had heard him speak in almost six months. He sounded a little better. A little stronger. His cheeks were fuller. ‘I’ve been doing some baking anyway. Fry’s teaching me.’ Then he leaves, not looking at Newt before he does.

The cake is pale gold and slightly sticky looking; when they cut into it it’s moist. Light. Newt licked honey off his fingers. He never knew Thomas could cook.

It was a shuck good cake. 

That’s what Newt thinks now, lying on his bedroll with Thomas asleep next to him. It was a shuck good cake. And Thomas had looked so happy for a moment, presenting Lizzy with it.

All of a sudden, Newt knows exactly what it is he’s going to get Thomas.

+

It’s a gift with two parts and many, many steps.

The first thing he does after waking up is find Gally and enlist his help. The shank isn’t exactly head builder anymore, but that’s still his wheelhouse, and he directs Newt to an apartment complex that’s been cleared of debris but isn’t yet in use. Assures him it’s ripe for the taking. 

The next thing he does is corner Zart at breakfast. Zart listens carefully to his question, then shrugs.

‘I dunno about all that, but I got the paper from Trevor.’ 

Trevor says, apologetically,

‘That was the last of it, mate.’

Newt has already considered this, he thanks Trevor anyway. Trevor nods.

‘This for your gift?’

‘Yeah.’

‘There’s been a lot of talk about that. Looks like you know what you’re gonna be giving, though.’

‘Got some ideas,’ Newt agrees, already re-calibrating his plan, shifting some things around. It’s still doable. It’ll still work.

He has a month.

+

He gets to work.

+

The first step, after actually finding the place, is to make it look presentable. Nice, even. It’s a small apartment, with one main room and a smaller one off to the side that’s supposed to be a bathroom. It’s also dusty as all hell, empty but dirty. He gets a few rags - there’s a free-for-all pile in the building they’ve deemed main hall for their little town - and fills a large basin with water, then spends an afternoon scrubbing the entire room clean. Enlists the help of Alby and by the time they’re finished they’re both covered with the paste-like substance ash and dust and water combine to make. Alby shakes his rag out in Newt’s direction.

‘You sure greenie is worth all this?’ he asks. There’s another question hidden in that one, but Newt ignores both of them. His non-answer makes Alby shrug. After they’re done they wash off in the river, stripped down to just their underthings, and let their clothes dry on the rocks.

‘I’m sure not going to all this trouble,’ Alby says.

‘Who’d you get?’

‘Nick.’

Nick. No one had been surprised when he’d ended up dead in the maze, he was too nice for that place. Too good. Newt hasn’t spoken to him much since they all came back, (since that first day when he opened his eyes after Thomas pulled the trigger only to find he wasn’t dead, none of them were: it was all just another trick, another _variable_), but judging from their few conversations, he’s still the same. ‘You could draw a smile on a rock and he’d be over the buggin’ moon.’

Alby smirks. ‘Maybe a bit more trouble then that.’ 

+

Next is painting. Newt mixes up a couple of different colours, this time joined by several people, including Lizzy and Teresa. Word apparently spreads that paints are being made for gift giving, so by lunchtime there’s a fair group sitting together, mixing gathered berries and plants and other ingredients to make a variety of different colours. Minho ends up off by himself with a bowl of something, refusing to tell anyone what he’s trying to do.

Teresa squashes handfuls of purple grapes until she’s got a bowl of blue, and then experiments dipping various rags into it.

‘For Brenda,’ she explains. ‘It’s going to be a scarf.’

Their friendship came as a surprise to almost everyone, if the faces Newt saw when Brenda and Teresa decided to room together are anything to go by. Even Minho, after suggesting winningly that he and Brenda share a room, had looked stunned when she’d leaned over and grabbed Teresa’s wrist.

‘Yeah, no thanks,’ she’d said, grinning. ‘Girls stick together.’

It’s sweet when it’s not vastly intimidating.

Liz helps Newt with different shades for his gift. supplies are limited, especially for the scale Newt has in mind, so in the end they decide to use the soft, warm grey that can be made easily using wood-ash from leftover fires. They dip their fingers into the first, experimental batch and then drag grey lines down their own faces, draw on each other.

‘I remember when you spilled a pot of yellow paint on my favourite dress,’ Liz says comfortably. She slaps a handful of grey on Newt’s cheek and grins. ‘Payback.’

Newt grins back. He can’t remember the yellow paint on Liz’s favourite dress, but that fact is much less painful than it had been at one point.

‘Ah shuck,’ he says, sadly, flinging a handful of paint over Liz, ‘did it again.’

She draws a penis on his other cheek.

They make another batch, this time using egg yolk as a binding agent like they’d learned, egg yolk mixed with vinegar and water, to make the mixture stick, then they go inside the apartment and effectively slather the walls as best they can. At one point Newt drags in a tree stump and stands on it on his tiptoes to reach all the way to the ceiling. It’s the second time in two days he’s been covered in some kind of paste. 

Between the two of them it takes a little over three days to give the walls a fairly even coating of the stuff, and when they’re done, the whole room smells faintly of smoke. But it looks nice enough, gentle, muted, and Newt is happy with it. He says so to Bernie when she asks how the gift is going. 

‘I’m impressed,’ she says, ‘that you’ve managed all this without even talking to the guy.’

She’s smiling slightly, and there’s a definite gleam in her eye. It’s stuff like this that Newt’s been able to ‘see’ her for so long, the little touches of humour. Even on that first day, when Alby had essentially frog marched him to her door, she’d greeted him with a,

‘So glad you could make it,’ and a twist to her lips that meant she knew exactly how little he wanted to be there. It helps, too, that she’s been seeing a couple of the others as well. She, along with a guy called Javier and another woman, Jodie, make up the entire psychological help team for over a few thousand mentally disturbed people.

‘Don’t worry,’ Bernie had assured him once, ‘you guys, all the trial kids, are by far the most messed up.’ She grins. ‘And there’s only, like, a couple of hundred of you. So it’s not that bad.’ Newt laughed when she’d said that, surprised. Decided maybe she’d be alright after all.

‘I’m a buggin’ wonder,’ he says now, and she nods.

‘Too right.’

+

The third step is, while not the hardest, definitely the most complicated part of the gift. It involves a lot of coordinating, a lot of gathering so that everything comes together the right way. It starts with paint again, but this time different - darker colours made with berries so that it will stand out on the gentle grey wall. He finds a stick and whittles down the end so that it’s sort of flat on one side, and then dips it into the dark purple paint and practices on his arm.

like the walls, it’s a little sloppy - but Newt is happy with it.

He corners everyone he can think of, Brenda, Teresa, Chuck, Minho, Alby, Frypan, even Gally, anyone Thomas has ever been close to, and explains what he wants them to do. Clarifies, in no uncertain terms, that they’d better not bloody tell Thomas any-lovin’-thing about his gift, his project. They all agree, and he ignores the smirking.

Then, over the next few days, they trickle into the apartment and begin to cover the walls. The paintbrush he made does the job, everything is legible, and the dark purple against the grey works well. they cover the left wall almost completely, and then somewhere along the way he loses control, a little bit, and it starts to branch out onto the back wall as something Newt hadn’t been expecting, but welcomes all the same.

‘Newt.’

He turns around. They’d finished earlier that afternoon, and after that he’d just remained there, reading everything. Somewhere along the line, it got dark, and now the walls are shadowed. He can only just make out Liz’s expression.

‘This place might need some lighting,’ he mutters. 

‘Thomas is on his way over here.’

‘What?’

At first he panics because the gift isn’t finished, it’s not done yet and they’re ten days out from gift giving . 

Then he panics Thomas does this, this is why they were put in a room together. Because Thomas wakes up trying to find him. There’s a feeling a bit like pins and needles but in his chest. Static and sharp and fuzzy. ‘How late is it?’ 

She gestures to the sky. ‘Late enough for it to get dark and Thomas to get worried.’

‘He can’t bloody see this! It’s not finished!’ 

‘So go home.’

He nods, and they leave together. Thomas catches them about five minutes from the apartment building, stopping short at the sight of Newt. His cheek is covered in faint red lines from sleeping on his pillow and his eyes are very brown, almost black.

‘Oh.’ He doesn’t say it to Newt exactly, but it’s kind of directed at him. For a moment it seems like he might say more, might look Newt in the eye. Thomas opens his mouth.

‘Night, Liz.’

Then he turns and heads back across the grass. Liz looks over at Newt with an expression that, he knows from experience, is one of exasperation.

‘You’re both morons.’

Which, well. Maybe. Newt sticks his tongue out.

+

It didn’t begin with Newt and Thomas not talking. It began with Thomas not talking to anybody, and even that wasn’t too worrying at first. Thomas had never been known to be the most sociable of the gladers - but after about a week of radio silence on all fronts, Minho, Teresa, Brenda and even Chuck included, they took notice.

And then he started running.

+

When Newt gets into bed, Thomas isn’t asleep yet. His breathing is too fast, too uneven. He doesn’t speak, and neither does Newt, so they both lie there in the dark. Inches from one another.

+

The last step is furnishing, or figuring out how much _can_ be furnished and trying to get that done.

It’s the hardest, and also the least important - the walls were the priority. Newt enlists Chuck’s help with this, because he’s grown up pretty strong and because he missed the little bastard. They find a table in one of the still empty houses that doesn’t wobble, drag it back to the apartment building. Set it up against the right wall.

‘This is great.’ Chuck whistles. ‘You did a great job, Newt.’

‘How’s your gift comin’ along?’

‘Pretty well.’

‘I don’t even know who you’ve got.’ 

‘Yeah, and I’m not sayin’. Unlike you shucks, I’ve got a little something called integrity.’

‘Integrity.’ Newt grins. ‘Sure Chuckie.’ He ruffles his hair. It’s longer now but still curly, and when he finishes it sticks up like it used to. Chuck flattens it down like he used to and scowls. ‘Are we done?’

It’s a sparse room with one piece of furniture and a window on the left wall that lets in sunlight. a bakery by no standards except post-apocalyptic. ‘I reckon.’ There are three days left till gift giving, he can’t exactly build a clay oven in that time. And this was never about a lack of equipment, anyway. It was about - well.

‘Nice work Chuck.’ He ruffles his hair again, ‘cause he can, and Chuck says,

‘Yeah, no kidding.’

+

Gift giving day last year was warm. Yellow in the morning, blue during the day, purple at night. They’d all sat around a fire, near the river, and exchanged the presents - meager things made with whatever they could find - laughed and talked and ate. It was the first time Newt could ever remember being really, truly happy.

Not that that had lasted very long, but it was there. A spark of it. Happiness, a possibility that maybe they could live their own lives outside of WICKED and the flare, maybe Liz could grow up and be safe. Maybe they all could. This is the warm feeling he has when he and Thomas leave the others, walk a little way away from the fire with the remainder of Minho’s concoction. They sit on the bank of the river and dangle their feet in the water. The water, the sky, the grass, Thomas’ eyes are all the same colour.

Hope is tentative in Newt’s chest, blossoming with every sip he takes. He’s never been happy like this before - his body feels like it’s unfurling. And he wants Thomas to feel it too.

There’s still a good quarter of liquor left when their lips smudge together.

+

Gift giving day this year is warm too. Newt wakes up early like always, but he lies in. Looks up at the slatted window, feels the sunlight drizzle over his face. Thomas isn’t in bed. Newt can only remember once waking up and shifting around to see Thomas still beside him, and that had been the morning after the last gift giving. He’d felt a sense of foreboding lying there, looking at Thomas’ back. Then Thomas had rolled around. Their eyes had met. 

It had been a bad morning.

He meets the others in the main room of their house, all of them looking either smug or excited. Or both. Minho grins at him.

‘Morning.’

‘Good that.’

The shadows under Minho’s eyes that started to become more prominent last year haven’t abated yet. None of them are very good at sleeping.

+

How gift giving works is this:

Chores in the morning as per usual (but everyone tends to be a little more lax with them),

finishing touches can be added to gifts if necessary around lunchtime. When dusk falls, they light a fire, and exchange gifts, eat dinner. It’s fun. Unorganised but heartfelt.

Newt spends most of the day alternately dreading the evening and wishing it was time already. He helps an elderly woman and her husband, Joan and John, harvest beans and corn and cucumber, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, the first of their crop of watermelon. He and Fry prepare some of the food into salads for the gift giving dinner. He assures Teresa her scarf is fine, that Brenda will love it. She says the same thing about his gift - snickers when he ignores her.

He can’t think about his gift, about Thomas. There are several candles on the table in the bakery waiting to be lit in case it’s dark when they finally - when -

He isn’t sure yet what he’s going to say. Hopes it’ll come to him in the moment. Everything he hasn’t been able to say for the past year. Sure, and his leg will suddenly heal, and he’ll get all his memories back.

For the rest of the day he does whatever odd jobs need to be done. Ends up distilling water with Bernie. She’s off the clock, so she doesn’t grill him about the evening ahead, instead she flicks water at him and shows him the hat she wove for Trevor. It’s yellow and almost flat, with a strap to go under the chin.

‘You’ll have to show me what you’ve been working on sometime,’ she says. He never told her exactly what it was, and she never pressed the matter. He’ll show her, though. After tonight. Maybe in their next talk.

The sky gets dark very slowly this time of year, Newt remembers. He watches it, having nothing else left to do. Pink-grey. They start building the fire behind him; the rest of their little town gathering together. He gets to his feet. Stretches.

There’s a tight buzzing in his chest as he walks across the grass to his friends. They’re all there. Thomas is there. The tightness squeezes.

‘Hey,’ Liz says, when he’s within earshot.

‘Hey.’ He looks around. ‘Have we started?’ It’s clear some of the adults have, and the children as well judging from the laughter starting to well up around them. Someone exclaims to Newt’s left; a bright, happy sound. Teresa sidles up to Brenda with her hands behind her back.

‘For you,’ she says. Newt’s eyes move away from Brenda, who is now hugging Teresa, to Thomas, standing by her side. He’s smiling faintly at the two of them. Someone nudges Newt forward; he whips around to see both Minho and Liz looking far too innocent. The tight feeling increases, but he steps forward again. Towards Thomas. Until he’s standing next to him, closer than they ever are except when they’re asleep. 

‘Hey,’ he says. For something to start with. Thomas’ smile is gone. The rest of the group is very silent around them Newt can tell, but he ignores it. Focuses on Thomas’ face. His slightly strained expression. And there’s no way Thomas doesn’t know, now, why Newt has walked up to him, so all Newt says is,

‘Come with me.’

And all Thomas says is,

‘Ok.’

+

A year after they arrived at the safe haven, Thomas started to run again. Every morning, before Newt woke up, he would be gone, returning sweaty and puffy-eyed for the later half of breakfast, where he would sit slightly apart from everyone and pick at the food in front of him.

He ran most evenings, too. Morning and evening, with a fanaticism Newt hadn’t seen since the maze. 

Like Thomas was escaping something. Like he was trying to find something.

+

They walk to the apartment block in silence. Newt leads the way, aware that Thomas is still with him thanks to the sound of his footsteps. The building isn’t far away, they reach it within moments. Newt considers saying something to preface their entry but in the end he just holds the door open and - lets Thomas through.

‘Tah-dah.’

It feels like a bit of an anti-climax. Thomas turns in a slow circle, taking it in. The sun is still high enough in the sky, still bright enough that the words on the walls are readable. Newt watches as Thomas’ reads. He touches a wall gently.

‘What is this?’

Newt shrugs. ‘A bakery.’

Thomas faces him; his face is full of sunlight. He looks giddy. ‘What?’

‘A bakery. For, y’know.’ Newt stumbles. ‘Baking.’

‘Right.’ Thomas traces the word ‘flour,’ on the wall. ‘And - these?’

‘Recipes.’ Newt steps closer to the wall, to Thomas, and runs his finger in a line under the list of ingredients Frypan had written for his father’s sticky honey cake. ‘Cause -‘ he flounders a little. The recipes wrap around the walls, tagged with little notes like, ‘my grandpa used to make these every year for my mum’s birthday,’ or, ‘it was a new years family tradition. I always thought they tasted like klunk.’ Branching out onto the other walls the recipes stop and instead the gladers have done strange doodles, sketches, initials. The antithesis of their wall of remembrance in the glade, because that had been about death. This is about living.

‘There was no paper,’ Newt blurts out. ‘That’s why it’s on the walls. I asked Trevor - wanted to make a bloody... recipe book. But.’

‘This is-‘ Thomas looks, for a full moment, like Newt had felt a year ago. Like he’s unwinding, smoothing out kinks that have been stiff and painful for so long he forgot they were there. For a moment Newt is euphoric. This is what Thomas wanted. A bakery, but beyond that, a way to both start again, and keep going. Something that takes the past and brings it gently into the present, buoys them into the future. Then Thomas catches Newt’s eye, and his expression collapses. He starts to fidget, steps away from the walls like they’re moving closer together. Newt opens his mouth to say something but before he can, Thomas backs out the door and sprints into the forest. Which seems dramatic, but it is Thomas. The door opens again and this time it’s Chuck, looking vaguely sheepish. 

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’ Newt feels oddly blank. ‘Chuckie?’

‘I hoped that might go better. He’ll be ok, Minho’s gone to get him.’

‘What’s Thomas running from?’

Chuck takes a deep breath. He looks equal parts determined and hesitant when he says, 'You.’

+

Thomas sits next to Newt at breakfast the next morning. No one says anything, but Newt takes care not to make eye contact with Alby or Minho anyway.

‘Hey,’ Thomas says. He’s fidgeting again, but not as badly as before. Smiles slightly. ‘Sorry about last night.’

‘It’s ok.’ Newt means it, too. Chuck had sat him down the previous night and explained, to his own understanding, what Thomas had been dealing with for the past year.

‘He couldn’t be around you,’ Chuck had said. ‘But he also couldn’t, y’know, not be around you. So.’ 

Chuck says he isn’t sure why that is - why Newt specifically makes Thomas behave this way, but Newt has ideas. Ideas that involve a bottle, half full, and a river at night.

‘How far’d you make it before Minho caught ya?’

‘Far enough that it took a half hour to get home.’

Newt can feel everyone elses’ eyes on him, on both of them. He raises an eyebrow at Thomas. ‘Anyone else’s bloody neck burnin’?’ 

Thomas shrugs. ‘Just our shuck friends being nosy.’

‘So,’ Minho says loudly, ‘Brenda. What’d Teresa give you? A scarf? Amazing.’

Brenda, wearing the blue-purple scarf around her neck, snorts. ‘Yeah, thanks Min.’

It does the trick though. Everyone sort of chuckles for a moment, and the atmosphere snaps. Easy conversation oozes up to take its place, and Newt sits and Thomas sits next to him and they talk.

+

‘You’re speaking again?’ Bernie says. Newt tugs a few pieces of grass up out of the earth, throws them down again. ‘Seems like your idea worked out pretty well.’

That’s a sticking point. They are talking, now, but only barely. Only for moments at a time. And Thomas still -

‘The bakery was good,’ Newt says. He’s trying a new thing with Bernie - contributing. It was Liz’s idea. ‘But it still hasn’t - there’s still something -‘ He doesn’t know quite how to say it. And he can’t stop thinking about that night. The morning after, when he’d woken up and looked at Thomas, Thomas had looked at him, and something was different. 

It had occurred to him, at the time, to say something. ‘I’m sorry for kissing you,’ maybe, even though it hadn’t been Newt who leaned in. Or, if it had, Thomas had still met him in the middle. But then Thomas had started running and stopped eating and it seemed so much bigger than that, not to mention he wouldn’t stay in a room with Newt long enough for him to get the words out. He even tried once, approaching Thomas a little way through dinner - but at the sight of him Thomas had all but sprinted in the opposite direction. So Newt hadn’t said anything. He’d just watched Thomas run himself to pieces.

But maybe that was the root of it all. Maybe it was Newt’s fault all along. Maybe all Thomas really wanted was an apology, a promise that it would never happen again.

And honestly, Newt is happy to oblige if it means he never has to see Thomas, ragged and gaunt in such a way again.

+

Newt had followed Thomas out into the woods, once. Just once. It was towards the beginning of everything, when, with no catastrophes for over a year, the gladers were finally starting to relax. Only that’s when other things begin to set in - insomnia, for example. 

‘It’s cause your body thinks you’re safe,’ Alby had said one night. ‘Before you didn’t have time for breakdowns, you had to survive. But now you can relax, there’s no need to hold back on all the mental damage.’ 

So Minho never slept, and Zart whimpered and Teresa muttered and Chuck shook and Thomas ran.

And Newt followed.

It was early in the morning, and almost an instinct. If you saw Thomas running, you ran too. And he had, stumbling out of the little house they all shared and down the steps, tripping over grass as Thomas moved towards the river and the forest across it. he had run until he realised what he was doing, what Thomas was doing, and then he’d stopped.

shouted, ‘Tommy!’

Thomas had turned around. His face was already hollowing; his eyes were very bright, and at the sight of Newt they grew large, swallowing the grey skin of his face until all that was left were his dark eyes and the fear in them.

Newt returned to camp shaking. That had been the morning Liz and Alby first took him to see Dr. Bernadette, after he snapped at Minho for laughing a little too loudly.

‘Can’t you see?’ he’d said, a little wildly, ‘something’s wrong with Tommy! He’s - he’s sick, he’s-‘

‘I know, you shank,’ Minho had replied, easy as you please. ‘I’ve got two eyes in my shuck head, don’t I?’

‘He looks like he’s bloody starving himself, Minho.’

‘Newt.’ Liz appeared at his side. pulled his hands away from where they were clutching at his hair. ‘Come with me.’

+

Once Bernadette gets him talking, Newt spends a lot of - if not all of - his first session yelling about what a bloody idiot Thomas is. How he’s in trouble.

Thomas gets thinner, keeps running.

Newt agrees that maybe seeing Bernadette might be something he should do.

+

It happens three days after gift giving. It’s been three days of slightly stilted conversation, because Thomas spends half the time looking like he’s seconds away from vanishing and Newt is trying to work his apology in naturally, but conversation nonetheless. On that third day, Newt doesn’t see Thomas at all after breakfast. This is partly because he spends most of the day helping Liz in the gardens, but also partly because as soon as he was done eating Thomas hopped to his feet and zoomed off, Chuck in tow, and hasn’t emerged since. Until suddenly Newt looks up and Thomas is headed towards him, carrying something in his arms.

‘Tah dah!’ is what Thomas says when he reaches him. He’s carrying his wooden board, and on it is a large brown loaf that smells strongly of bananas and cinnamon.

‘You made this?’ 

Steam wisps off the golden crust of the bread and dissipates upwards; Thomas grins.

‘First thing baked in the bakery. I wanted you to have the first taste. It’s Winston’s Mum’s recipe.’ Newt looks up from the food and into Thomas’ face. His smile is easy and his cheeks are flushed from the steam. In Newt’s chest, right near his heart, he feels something contract.

He could say, ‘thank you,’ or, ‘looks incredible,’ anything, anything, he could say anything except

‘I’m sorry I kissed you.’ 

Thomas doesn’t drop the bread, he just frowns. ‘Huh?’

No point backtracking. Newt squares his shoulders. ‘That night, after last years gift giving. When we sat by the river.’ 

‘Why are you apologising for that?’ Thomas looks, if anything, mystified. He’s also blushing a little, but Newt pointedly ignores that.

‘Well, y’know. That was kind of... when things started to get a bit buggin’ rough for you. And I wondered- well.’ The air still smells sweetly of bananas and spices, Thomas has moved closer to Newt. Is watching him. Newt himself can feel a thick warmth squeezing down his face onto his neck and chest. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. Why in the bloody hell did he mention it? It was just a stupid, drunken, barely there kiss - maybe Thomas had forgotten it had even happened. He squeezes his eyes shut, only to open them when Thomas says,

‘Newt?’

‘What?’ Newt winces at how brusque his voice sounds.

‘That’s not why... I’ve been acting the way I have,’ Thomas says slowly. ‘You don’t have to apologise. I promise.’ He smiles again, not very convincingly. ‘I’m just being a shuck coward, yeah?’ And then he walks away, leaving Newt gaping after him.

+

‘So the bakery worked insofar that it managed to get you two talking again-‘

Newt doesn’t even try to protest at this point.

‘But it didn’t get things back to normal. Because you don’t know why he stopped being normal around you in the first place. And it’s not the kiss, like you thought. It’s something else.’

‘That about sums it up.’

‘Have you considered that it might be that thing you told me about? The thing where he _shot_ you?’

Newt _had_ considered that, actually. But only briefly. Why, after a whole year of nothing, would it now suddenly drive Thomas to such drastic methods of avoiding Newt, of harming himself? He shakes his head.

‘It’s not that.’

‘Right.’ Bernie leans backwards, arms folded. ‘What would you do,’ she asks slowly, ‘if it was Minho, instead of Thomas, who was acting this way? Avoiding you, not taking care of himself, that kind of thing.’ 

Newt frowns. ‘Minho doesn’t bloody take care of himself. The shank barely sleeps. And he’s not really the avoiding type. If there’s a problem he’ll tell you there’s a buggin’ problem.’

‘Well what if it was Liz, then? Or Alby?’

‘I dunno. Do whatever I could to help, I s’pose? I mean all these shanks have stuff goin’ on.’

‘Yes, but you never talk about that here. Newt, you talk about Thomas more than anyone else you know, except maybe Lizzy.’

‘So?’

‘What’s so special about Thomas, then?’

‘Nothing.’ Newt pauses. ‘He won’t talk to me.’

‘He’s talking to you now, isn’t he?’

‘Well, yeah, but-‘

‘But not like he used to, am I right?’

‘I guess. What’re you getting at?’

Bernie seems to gaze at him with infinite patience. ‘I know you’re trying to help Thomas. I don’t think you should stop, either, mind you. But I do think you should ask yourself what exactly it is you want from Thomas.’ And then, for emphasis, ‘what do you _want_, Newt?’

She lets him go after that, and her words loop over and over again while he wanders. ‘What do you want from Thomas?’ 

Well. Nothing. He doesn’t want a single lovin’ thing from Thomas, not a thing. If Thomas stopped talking to him, moved rooms, left the house altogether, that would be fine with Newt. As long as he never looks so pinched, so trapped, ever again, Thomas can do anything in the whole shuck world, even pull away from Newt again. All he wants is for Thomas to be happy. That’s all he wants.

+

Except then Thomas starts to pull away from Newt again.

+

If he didn’t know Thomas so well he wouldn’t notice, but he does, so he has to watch him withdraw, slowly.

And it’s only been a few days, less than a week really, of - not normalcy but something, more than it had been in a long time - but it feels worse than the first time. Because, Newt knows deep down, he _let_ it happen. Before. Thomas ran inside himself and hid there, from everything, from Newt - and Newt stood aside, maybe they had all stood aside, Minho, Teresa, all of them, too busy fighting their way through the thickened scar tissue that had once protected, now suffocates. 

He corners Thomas in the morning.

It’s clear he’s just been for a run; he’s squatting by the river as Newt approaches him. Sweaty but calm; cupping water in his hands and splashing it up onto his face. Newt can see where the top has ridden up on his chest, can see the skin beneath. Remembers when it was leaner, bones pressing thick against the skin.

Newt looks away.

‘Tommy.’

Thomas’ head snaps up. ‘Klunk,’ he says after a moment. ‘Newt. Didn’t know you were there.’ Newt shrugs, tries to seem as though he meant to use the nickname, that it didn’t slip out and now it’s hanging in front of him, taunting him.

‘What’s up?’

‘You gotta stop avoiding me.’

Well. Subtley’s never been a great strength of Newt’s, especially where Thomas is involved. Newt watches Thomas’ eyes widen, watches him get to his feet. Water is still running down his chin and cheeks. Hopes briefly that he’s coming across as pissed off instead of needy, but he can’t be sure. ‘I don’t bloody know why you’re doin’ it but I know you are. If there’s a problem, tell me, yeah? Stop being such a slinthead.’

As apologies go, he’s done better. Thomas is still gazing at him, now with a flicker of the trapped, wild look Newt’s seen a few times before. In his own face, too.

He saw it, distorted, in the foggy mirrors of the showerhouse in the glade the day he -

there’s nothing else he can say. _Sorry I let you drown. Sorry you got stuck and I couldn’t help you get out. Sorry you killed me._

_Sorry I killed you. Sorry, sorry, sorry._

_I just want you to be happy. _

_I’m sorry._

‘I’m sorry.’

Newt’s face creases with confusion. In front of him, Thomas is rubbing a hand along the bridge of his nose. ‘Sorry? For what?’

‘Shuck. Everything. What d’you think?’ Thomas half laughs. ‘Easier to say what I don’t have to apologise for.’

‘But you _don’t_ have anything to bloody apologise for!’ This is quickly spinning out of Newt’s control. ‘Bloody hell, Tommy, I’m the one who should be sorry.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re right. I’ve been avoiding you.’ A deep

breath. ‘You deserve an explanation.’

But he knows already. Chuck told him.

‘It’s cause you don’t think this is real, right? Like, we might just be in another bloody experiment and any minute some shuck doctor is gonna jump out and say something about... about killzones or variables or some klunk.’

‘Right. That. But you already knew that. there’s also - well. There’s another... another part. Because that’s why I’ve been such a shuck weirdo since we got here, but it doesn’t explain why I’ve been avoiding you specifically.’

This is true. Newt doesn’t say anything. His throat is suddenly dry, he feels like there are burning rocks buried under his sternum. Rocks that are being dislodged, are rolling heavily down his spine and into his hands and feet. He clears his throat. ‘Thomas, you don’t have to-‘

‘It’s the promise.’

He stops. ‘What promise?’

Thomas’ hands grip at each other, Newt watches him drag his knuckles against his palm. Back and forth. ‘The _promise_,’ Thomas repeats, like added emphasis will make everything clear.

‘You made a promise about me to someone?’

‘No, I made a promise to you. That night. The night we... y’know.’

Kissed. ‘Didn’t we just go to sleep after that? We were pretty bloody pissed.’

‘Yeah, we were. But no. We kept talking.’ Thomas is watching him with a kind of dawning horror. ‘You really don’t remember?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ Newt’s never made anyone promise him anything. Promises are too easily broken when you’re lab rats for a sadistic scientific organisation after the end of the world.

‘We started... talking. About how I didn’t know if this was real. We were all alive, you were cured... it seemed like there was no way it could be true. So you made me... promise. If it turned out it wasn’t true, that you weren’t cured-’ he pauses for a moment. ‘You made me promise to kill you.’

The words, the expression on Thomas’ face, is physical. It has weight when it strikes him.

‘So... whenever I saw you... I thought about it. I couldn’t help it, I just - because I didn’t know. If I would really have to - to do that again. I didn’t know if I _could_ do it again. But I knew you’d want me to, so I tried to kind of... withdraw.’ Thomas swallows. ‘I got kinda obsessed with figuring it out. If this is real. Because if it isn’t, that means-‘

He breathes in, shaky. ‘I’m sorry, Newt. I wasn’t strong-‘

His words are cut off, presumably by surprise, because Newt is pulling Thomas closer, wrapping his arms around his neck. The dampness of Thomas’ t-shirt registers cooly against Newt’s chest. He ignores it.

‘Tommy.’ God, he doesn’t know where to begin. ‘I’m so shucking sorry, Tommy.’ He hasn’t shaken like this in a long time - it _is_ his fault, he made Thomas _promise_\- ‘god, Tommy, I shucked it. I bloody - I’m so _bloody sorry_. I take it back. I forgot I even bloody - you don’t have to. Kill me. Hell, when we first got here I thought you were gonna hate me because I... _made_ you do it back _then_, and now -‘ whether or not his words are even comprehensible Newt isn’t sure, they’re being mumbled, rapid fire, into Thomas’ shoulder as he hugs him. He’s skinnier than he used to be, even now. That’s Newt’s fault, too. But Thomas’ arms are firm around his waist, he’s speaking over Newt.

‘It’s ok.’

‘It’s not buggin’ ok.’

‘Yeah, it is. I know why you did it. Liz. You couldn’t stop staring at that little scratch on her cheek for weeks after you met her, you weren’t going to let yourself become a danger to her. I just-‘ the arms around Newt tighten slightly. ‘I’d already - you’d already been... gone... once. I didn’t want you to... _go_... again. God, Newt, you deserve so much-‘

Thomas breathes out. Says, ‘honestly, even without the promise, I probably would have done the same shuck thing. Avoided you. Because I didn’t want to lose you again, if it was all a lie. Because I’m a coward. And then I started to get... better, but every time I saw you I just - and then you made me a shucking _bakery_ and -‘

His words cut off again. There’s not much closer Newt can pull him at this point, the space between them is negligible. So instead he shifts, raises his head and tilts it. Kisses Thomas right on his mouth.

A year ago, by the river at dawn they had kissed before. It was small and quiet and bruised like the sky, the river, Thomas’ eyes. Now they kiss again, by the river, and it’s still small. Tentative.

_I want you to be happy_, Newt thinks. _I want you to be so, so happy_.

Can you say that with a kiss?

Newt takes Thomas’ face in his hands, his fingers splayed against the skin of this beautiful boy, and tries.


End file.
